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From psychoanalysis to existential therapy, there’s a bewildering variety of approaches – with one thing in common
Sam came into psychotherapy during a difficult period at work. He had started to feel as if he was stagnating in his role and it was getting him down. As he approached midlife he had reached a level of seniority that he had sought for years, but now he was starting to wonder whether this was it. He wasn’t sure exactly what the matter was: he didn’t feel especially depressed, just somehow stuck. It had taken him a long time to consider speaking to someone – what could they really do, in the absence of an obvious psychological disorder?
Psychotherapy occupies an increasingly central place in our culture. Just as we have become inclined to understand our struggles and our sadness under the heading of “mental health”, so too we have placed ever greater authority on psychotherapists to help us understand how we should deal with the problems life throws up. Even those without diagnoses of depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder increasingly seek therapeutic support, with a recent survey finding that around a third of the population have done so.
Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding power
There is a stubborn and widely held idea that in some earlier phase of our species’ existence, women had equal status to men, or even ruled, and societies were happier and more peaceful for it. Then along came the patriarchy, and much bloodshed and oppression later, here we all are.
This notion of matriarchy and patriarchy as polar opposites – with a switch having been thrown between them – was seeded in the 19th century by Marxist theory, taking root in archaeology without much evidence. From there it spread to public consciousness.